When my fiancée asked me to be a guest writer on her blog, I was a bit skeptical, to say the least—excited and honored no doubt… but skeptical as well. And this is because of how much I admire her writing skills. I love the way she crafts her stories masterfully and pulls in her audience with perfectly timed wit and raw honesty (so I wondered if my writing would be good enough)… but I digress!
As you can tell from the title, I’ll be letting you in on what this process of courting my fiancée has highlighted in me, and boy, this thing has shone a stadium-sized light directly at my little world and, in some ways, turned it upside down.
Now, I won’t pretend that courting was always on my radar because the truth is, it wasn’t. However, what I will say is…God’s way is always undoubtedly the best way (and I am grateful I eventually surrendered to God’s leading).
Although I knew the Lord, for years I treated my love life very worldly—dating and exploring options as any single man would. All this until, of course, I met a particularly humble woman of God whose inner beauty matched her stunning outward appearance.
As I’ve been telling everyone for the past couple months, “when you find good tings, you hold on to it” …LOL!!!
Needless to say, the first chance I got, I asked Ms. Dayelight if we could enter courtship.
The yes was just the beginning….
While dating is our culture’s norm and it feels almost natural to explore options and pick, choose and refuse as they say, courting forces you to focus all your attention on one person—and boy, did we focus.
Outside of the cute dates, devotionals and occasional hand-holding, each of us started thoroughly examining the other’s lifestyle, standards, consistency and character under what seemed like a microscope.
And the revelations—whoo—the revelations were plenty.
The first big one for me came after a huge disagreement we had, which highlighted that I struggle with pride—something I would never ever thought I struggled with, but there it was… a glaring reminder my humility was not as strong as I thought.
The night that became clear, tears filled my eyes as I knelt in prayer, because how could I not have seen this monster of a flaw I was carrying around on my back? And worse yet, how many relationships did I ruin to keep this monster alive?
Nonetheless, I was thankful to the Lord for revealing it to me by way of my spouse responding with grace and patience. As the scripture says, “Pride goes before a fall,” and that could have been the fall of this now beautiful relationship.
The next thing this courtship revealed about me was that emotional wounds I thought were long healed had just been cleverly covered with a few coping band-aids—all of which got promptly ripped off the more time we spent together.
So while I thought I had a secure attachment style, I quickly realized that the closer I get to someone, my attachment switches to anxious because past failed relationships told me, “when things feel too good, something bad is coming.”
That was tough to accept, but growth is usually a byproduct of discomfort, so I have since used this as an opportunity to grow and, as my pastor would say, “find rest” in knowing who I am in Christ… shoutout to Pastor Tucker & Family Word & Worship.
At this point, I should say that not all the discoveries were doom and gloom. However, I’m choosing to focus on these because hearing the so-called “good things” most of the time is limited to reinforcing our confidence and doesn’t usually do much for our self-improvement.
But before I close with my last point, let me say this; this courtship has made me discover the following:
- I had gifts I was unaware of
- Romance activates my creativity
- The more you practice righteousness, the better you get at it
- True love is wayyy more than a feeling (I’ll share more on this another time)
Now, the final one I will share for now about what I discovered about myself during this courtship is: I was nowhere near as emotionally mature as I thought I was… wheew mighty!
I’ve always enjoyed reading a lot of material on relationships, watching a lot of videos, reels and even researching in my free time what makes relationships successful. I could list every attachment style and every love language and quote philosophies of random scholars wo study relationships—for example, Mr. Gary Chapman, whose books are bestsellers.
But entering courtship with my now fiancée showed me I had a lottt more work to do. As the scripture says, “be transformed by the renewing of one’s mind.”
I had to humble myself, pray and ask the Lord for wisdom to unlearn some of the dysfunction I thought was just normal. And the way it was revealed makes me laugh to myself daily because it wasn’t until I saw the fruits of the Spirit being displayed by my spouse that I realized my tree was barely out of the ground and had shaky roots at best.
Now, I’m not going to turn this into a “Crystal is the greatest” thing… even though she is LOL!! But she’s also human, which means she has her own flaws and shortcomings. However, I believe her obedience to the Lord has granted her a level of self-mastery which I’ve never witnessed before.
Some months ago, she made a post referring to me titled, “The one God kept for me,” but the twist is… if she wasn’t diligently walking with the Lord, she would’ve most likely kicked me to the curb in the infancy of our relationship… and deservedly so.
So again, I’m grateful—not only for my spouse but for the overall growth this relationship has brought out in me, simply because we decided our lives will be led by Christ … not just on the surface but in a sincerely surrendered way.
God is awesome… I highly recommend doing things His way:-)
Takeaways:
- Be not conformed to the things of this world. As I found out from doing courtship instead of dating, the Lord knows best. What seems only religious is oftentimes extremely practical and very effective
- Be open to outside criticism, especially when it’s coming from a genuine place of love and led by the Lord… it can save you a lot of disappointment and heartbreak
- Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. Knowing better doesn’t always mean we do better, but again, if we are fully submitted to the Lord, we inevitably start putting knowledge into practice, which then becomes wisdom
I would like to close by saying… none of us is perfect. As Prodigal Son’s latest song proclaims, we are “under construction,” and that’s ok… but always try to remain humble.
“Lean not on thine own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.” (Proverbs 3:5–6)
Thank you, Ms. Daye, for making me a guest blogger.
So until next time, remember… God is love and you are His most beloved creation… act accordingly!!!
O.B.T
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Feel free to email me: crystalsdaye@gmail.com